EMAN in the News: "Maine Things Considered" - Maine's Needle Exchanges Threatened

Posted by Suze Howe on Monday, November 30th 2009 in EMAN News, National news, and EMAN in the media

EMAN in the NEW YORK TIMES - Bill Would Limit Needle Exchanges

BANGOR, Me. — For years, the location of this city’s needle exchange program, in a nondescript strip mall close to highways and bus lines, was seen as amajor asset.

But now, AIDS activists say, that very location could undermine what happens inside the exchange.

A bill working its way through Congress would lift a ban of more than 20 years on using federal money for needle exchange programs. But the bill would also ban federally financed exchanges from being within 1,000 feet of a school, park, library, college, video arcade or any place children might gather — a provision that would apply to a majority of the country’s approximately 200 exchanges.

“This 1,000-foot rule is simply instituting the ban in a different form,” said Rebecca Haag, executive director of the AIDS Action Council, an advocacy group based in Washington. “Clearly the intent of this rule is to nullify the lifting of the ban.”

Under a separate bill, all exchanges in Washington within the 1,000-foot perimeter would be barred from receiving city money as well as federal money.

“Let’s protect these kids,” said Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, who introduced the Washington bill. “They don’t need to be playing kickball in the playground and seeing people lined up for needle exchange.”

Both bills have passed the House and a Senate subcommittee and await Senate action.

Advocates and organizations including the N.A.A.C.P. are lobbying Congress to kill the 1,000-foot provisions. The promise of federal money could not come at a better time, these officials say, as states are cutting their health and human services budgets and private donations are dropping precipitously. At least four needle exchanges have closed this year because of a lack of financing.

Many exchanges are run by organizations that provide broad-based health services like testing for the AIDShepatitis C, mental health counseling, medical referrals and condom distribution. Advocates worry that if needle exchanges disappear, drug users will lose access to those other services. virus and

The rule “is going to kill us,” said Ellis Poole, executive director of the Harm Reduction Center of Southern Oregon, which is 997 feet from a high school in Roseburg. The center runs a needle exchange and offers antidrug programs to high schools in the area. With donations plummeting, it has a $374,000 budget deficit for 2009. Mr. Poole said he worried that the center’s programs would be threatened if the bill passed.

“We could move a few feet down, but the building is more expensive at the other end,” Mr. Poole said. “I have to beg for money for computers. I have to ask people to come clean the carpet at no charge.”

Officials at exchanges in cities like Chicago, New York and Washington say there are few, if any, places that could house a needle exchange under the rule.

“I was thinking, ‘A thousand feet, how much is that?’ ” said Raquel Algarin, executive director of the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center in Manhattan. “And then I found myself thinking, ‘We’d probably be doing syringe exchange in the middle of the East River, and any exchange on the West Side would be in the Hudson River.’ How do you work that out?”

Many advocates also worry that smaller, rural exchanges, which lack the fund-raising abilities and infrastructure of many larger, urban exchanges, will be affected by the 1,000-foot rule.

In Maine, which officials say has one of the highest rates of prescription drug abuse per capita in the country and is grappling with a recent influx of heroin, AIDS activists worry that they will receive less money just as their client base is growing. The state’s four exchanges — in Augusta, Bangor, Ellsworth and Portland — would be ineligible for federal money.

“The federal funding would be key for us,” said Patricia A. Murphy, executive director of the Eastern Maine AIDS Network in downtown Bangor.

Upon entering the office, squeezed between a veterans center and a music store, drug users are escorted into a small room, where a trained staff member checks them in, using only first names and case numbers, and carefully counts their needles.

Under Maine law, drug users may receive one clean needle for every dirty one they turn in. The exchange offers users a variety of needle sizes, along with tourniquets, antiseptic ointment, condoms and information on safe needle use, and helps refer clients to clinics and treatment centers that deal with sexually transmitted diseases. The center also has a food bank, which clients are urged to use.

Those who have built a level of trust with Ms. Murphy and her staff send fellow drug users to the office. The number of users enrolled in the needle exchange here has doubled in the past year, while funding fell by about 15 percent.

The federal money, Ms. Murphy said, would allow the exchange to grow with the number of clients, many of whom come from rural northern and eastern Maine, and set up mobile needle exchange units in communities more than 100 miles from Bangor.

“This is a critical piece of harm reduction,” Ms. Murphy said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, intravenous drug use directly or indirectly accounts for about one-fifth of the nation’s 1.1 million H.I.V. cases, and needle exchanges are an effective way to stem the spread of infection. The World Health Organization said in a 2004 report that there was “compelling evidence” that increasing needle exchanges reduced H.I.V. transmission. It cited studies showing that the rate of infection dropped up to 18 percent in cities with an exchange.

Luke, a 30-year-old Bangor resident who did not want to give his last name, said he exchanged his needles, and sometimes those of his friends, about once a week. He said he had become addicted to Suboxone, a drug intended to treat opiate addiction that officials say more people are starting to abuse.

In a black hooded sweatshirt and red sneakers, Luke said he often also picked up condoms and guides on how to inject drugs more safely. He said he came to the facility because its location made it discreet and few people knew what it was.

A 23-year-old man who is addicted to heroin and exchanges needles at the Down East AIDS Network in Ellsworth called the 1,000-foot limit “ridiculous.” The man, who did not want to give his name because of his addiction, said he started using heroin eight years ago and exchanging needles four years ago. He said he often picked up needles he saw on the ground and brought them in for safe disposal.

“It’s a dangerous thing to do,” the man said of his heroin use, “but it’s best to take every precaution you can. If you’re going to do this stuff, you should do it right.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/health/policy/09needle.html?emc=eta1

Posted by Suze Howe on Monday, November 9th 2009 in EMAN News, National news, and EMAN in the media

EMAN in the News: United Way Campaign

United Way kicks off $2.5M campaign
Meg Haskell, Bangor Daily News

BANGOR, Maine — The racetrack at Bass Park was a sea of bright-colored banners and T-shirts at noon Thursday as the United Way of Eastern Maine kicked off its 2009 fundraising campaign. Teams from more than 50 area employers and participating agencies thronged the racetrack and the adjacent stands as reggae and other lively music set a party atmosphere.

United Way helps fund partnerships among local social service agencies aimed at improving health, education and employment options for Mainers.

“Our goal is to raise money to help more than 40,000 residents of eastern Maine,” said John Kuropchak, president of the United Way of Eastern Maine, which has headquarters in Bangor but serves individuals and families in Hancock, Penobscot, Piscataquis, Waldo and Washington counties. The overall goal of the campaign is $2.5 million, most of which will be raised from individual workers in the form of modest deductions from their weekly paychecks.

About 30 city of Bangor employees were there on their lunch breaks, marching around the track with Mayor Gerry Palmer setting the pace.

“We always have a good turnout every year,” Palmer said. The majority of the city’s approximately 400 employees will contribute to the campaign, he said.

Also on hand was a group of about a half-dozen employees from the Eastern Maine AIDS Network. Director Patsy Murphy said the grass-roots agency relies on a patchwork of funding sources to help meet the medical, educational and social needs of people with HIV and AIDS. Funds from United Way of Eastern Maine each year help pay for case management services, she said, to ensure that individuals take full advantage of services they are qualified for.

Other participating teams represented both donor and recipient agencies, including the Bangor Area Homeless Shelter, Camden National Bank, the Good Samaritan Agency, the Girl Scouts of Maine, Hannaford, Webber Energy Fuels and many others.

Mike Openshaw of Lead Me Media in Brewer was there to support his fiancee, Lisa Sargent, who is a senior manager at the firm of Berry, Dunn, McNeil and Parker, an accounting firm in Bangor.

“She had no idea I was coming,” Openshaw said, holding a sign with Sargent’s name on it.

“This is the sixth year she’s been doing this with Berry, Dunn, McNeil and Parker,” he said, “I told her I’d come out and support her.”

The couple plans to marry on Oct. 10, 2010 — 10-10-10.

“She’s an accountant,” Openshaw said. “She had to pick that date.”

Local businesses have donated prizes to encourage regular payroll donations of as little as $2 a week to the United Way campaign.

Prizes include a 2009 Ford Focus donated by Darling’s, a Schwinn scooter from Stanley Scooters, 500 gallons of heating oil from R.H. Foster Energy and a $500 gift card from L.L. Bean.

On the Web: www.unitedwayem.org

Posted by Suze Howe on Friday, October 9th 2009 in EMAN News and EMAN in the media

EMAN in the News: Needle Exchanges Threatened

A man who identified himself as Kevin holds a handful of syringes at the Down East AIDS Network office in Ellsworth, which offers a needle exchange program. Kevin said he has been exchanging used syringes for about eight months and he even brings in used needles from other drug users and gives them new ones

Drug needle exchanges threatened
Federal budget bill would limit locations available to facilities
Meg Haskell, Bangor Daily News

ELLSWORTH, Maine — Three or four times a week, “Kevin” — not his real name — drops by the inconspicuous, side-street offices of the Down East AIDS Network.

He deposits a handful of used syringes — the tiny, sharp-needled variety favored by intravenous drug users — into a red plastic container labeled for safe disposal. He helps himself to a supply of new syringes, along with some single-dose vials of sterile water he later will mix with crushed prescription painkillers, heat and inject into his bloodstream.

These supplies, and others aimed at reducing the dangers of IV drug abuse, are given away freely, anonymously and without question at DEAN, which has run a low-profile needle exchange program here since 2007. The “harm reduction” goal of the program, and of the three other needle exchange programs that have operated in Maine since 1998, is to reduce the transmission of HIV, viral hepatitis and other diseases related to IV drug use, while also collecting used needles and syringes for safe disposal.

Needle exchange programs like this are imperiled at the federal level. A double-edged Health and Human Services appropriations bill recently approved by the House would free up much-needed federal funding, which has been prohibited in recent years. But advocates say a misguided amendment to the bill would ban federally funded programs from operating in the places they’re most needed. The amendment imposes a 1,000-foot perimeter around any school, college, park, library, public pool, youth center or other place where juveniles typically congregate, and prohibits needle exchange programs from operating inside that zone.

When the Senate passes its version of the Health and Human Services budget bill later this year, the two measures will be merged into a single piece of legislation for final approval by both bodies.

“If the House amendment makes it through [into the final appropriations bill] it will affect virtually all programs located in urban areas,” said Andrew Bossie of the Maine AIDS Alliance. “The HIV community here in Maine is very concerned about this.”

“This restriction would make it virtually impossible to operate a needle exchange program in Ellsworth,” said Steve Richard, executive director of DEAN.

Between schools, day care programs, parks and other sites, he said, there is essentially no place within the small coastal city where the program could be located and still be accessible to the people who need it.

In addition to Ellsworth, other needle exchange programs in Maine are headquartered in Augusta, Bangor and Portland. Some offer occasional mobile services that reach into more rural areas of the state. A fifth site in Lewiston has closed but may reopen in the future. Funding is a shoestring of state dollars, foundation grants and private donations.

Patsy Murphy, director of the Eastern Maine AIDS Network in Bangor, runs the city’s needle exchange program out of her Harlow Street offices. She said the specifics of the proposed restriction are unclear, but it’s unlikely the EMAN program would qualify for federal funds if the House amendment were to be included in the final budget bill.

In the past year, EMAN has collected almost 12,000 dirty needles and given away approximately the same number of clean ones, Murphy said. In addition, out of the approximately 200 drug users enrolled, about 150 have been referred for substance abuse treatment, medical care, mental health counseling and other services.

“There is a lot of relationship-building that goes into this program,” Murphy said. “We all have the utmost respect, compassion and commitment to our clients’ health and well-being.”

The needle exchange program at EMAN has a budget of about $30,000, cobbled together from small private grants and personal donations. It’s enough to keep the program running at its current level, Murphy said, but federal funding would enable a much-needed expansion of services.

“People think we are promoting drug use, but that is simply not the case,” she said. “We are committed to stopping the spread of disease.”

Since 1998, when the first program opened in Portland, tens of thousands of clean needles have been distributed in Maine. According to a recent report to the Maine Legislature, the four programs in 2008 collected a total of more than 29,000 used syringes and gave away close to 31,000 new ones. Nearly 900 individuals partici-pated, including about 260 new enrollees.

The programs also collect and compile anonymous public health data, such as the age and ethnicity of enrollees, their drug of choice, whether they’ve been tested for HIV and hepatitis and what the results of that testing are.

“Science has told us that for IV drug users … these programs are access points to education, testing, substance abuse treatment and other referrals,” said James Markiewicz, director of the HIV, STD and Viral Hepatitis Program in the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. “The programs are good, sound public health.”

Reps. Mike Michaud and Chellie Pingree both voted for the Health and Human Services budget bill that contains the amendment. Michaud said in a recent interview that he was unaware of the amendment and would have concerns about its implementation. A spokesman from Pingree’s office said Pingree has co-sponsored leg-islation that would negate the ban in future budgets.

A spokesman from Sen. Olympia Snowe’s office said the location of drug treatment programs, including needle exchange programs, is a “multidimensional challenge” often best left to local decision-makers.

Kevin Kelley of Sen. Susan Collins’ office said Collins supports programs that combat the spread of HIV-AIDS. But, he said, the senator feels taxpayer funds should be spent on “bringing help to the population suffering from heroin addiction, not on giving them more effective means to continue their addiction.”

Bossie of the Maine AIDS Alliance said people who don’t understand the principle of harm reduction are fearful that the programs will attract drug users to their neighborhoods and even worsen the problem of drug abuse.

“But statistics show that having a syringe exchange does not encourage drug use,” Bossie said. “It does mean that people with this unhealthy habit do it more safely, while getting dirty needles off the streets.” At DEAN, needle-exchanger Kevin agreed. The 30-year-old clam digger said intravenous drug use is “rampant” in Hancock and Washington counties. “Everybody and his uncle is using,” he said.

“Especially between Steuben and Lubec, it’s amazing how many people are on the needle.” He often picks up extra supplies for his drug-using friends Down East. Paying for illicit drugs is easier for day laborers like him, who can use a portion of each day’s pay to support their habit, Kevin said.

“A lot of us are pretty here-and-now types,” he said. If needle exchange programs are discontinued, he said, it won’t drive addicts into treatment or make them stop using drugs.

“People are going to do what they do,” he said, bagging his clean supplies in a discreet brown paper sack and heading for the door. “A program like this just makes it cleaner and safer.”

Posted by Suze Howe on Thursday, October 8th 2009 in EMAN in the media

Bangor Daily News article about the AIDS Walk!

AIDS walk gives disease visibility, raises money

By Nok-Noi Ricker
BDN Staff
May 4, 2009

BANGOR DAILY NEWS PHOTO BY KATE COLLINS

Participants in the Bangor Area AIDS Walk acknowledge support from passing motorists during their 5K walk through Bangor on Saturday. Organized by the Maine Community AIDS Partnership, the funds raised by walkers were matched by the National AIDS Fund, with all proceeds benefiting local AIDS and HIV organizations.

BANGOR, Maine - More than 100 people walked in the downtown area Saturday, raising awareness that HIV-AIDS is still a problem in Maine, the country and the world.

"Until the disease goes away, we're not going away," Patsy Murphy of the Eastern Maine AIDS Network said before the event. "HIV-AIDS is still an issue. It's still a problem."

The Bangor AIDS Walk was one of nine held across the state over the weekend to spotlight the disease and raise funds to support programs that help those living with the virus and efforts to prevent its spread.

"We've got dogs and babies" and Mardi Gras beads, Murphy said Saturday as she walked with the group of around 120 people along the Penobscot River waterfront. "We're getting toots and waves" from people along the route.

The Eastern Maine AIDS Network was able to raise more than $4,000 in pledges, and all of the funds raised statewide will be matched by the National AIDS Fund in partnership with the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

"The dollars raised here stay here," Murphy said.

Even in these hard economic times, residents of Maine have been very giving, said Andrew Bossie of the Maine AIDS Alliance, based in Augusta.

"We have exceeded last year," he said. "We're due to raise over $50,000 statewide, all to be matched by the national AIDS network. I'm pretty pumped."

The locally raised funding is critical because state and federal dollars have decreased over the past several years, he said.

Statewide, more than 1,200 people are living with HIV, the precursor to AIDS, and an estimated 500 others are believed to be infected and don't know it, Bossie said.

"People should go out and get tested ... to help fight this," he said.

While the number of confirmed cases each year is relatively low, more people are testing positive for the disease nowadays than a decade ago, Bossie said.

"The crazy thing is 10 years ago, in '89, we had 32," he said. "The number was 46 last year and 50 the year before that."

Those interested in finding out more about HIV-AIDS or who want to make a donation may contact Bossie at the Maine AIDS Alliance, 899-9983.

nricker@bangordailynews.net
990-8190

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/105152.html

Posted by Suze Howe on Wednesday, May 6th 2009 in EMAN News, EMAN in the media, and Past events

Many thanks for a successful World AIDS Day

Thank you all so much for your support of World AIDS Day at the University of Maine Student Union and the Hammond Street Congregational Church.  Many thanks to Ja'Nette Converse for sharing her story with us all.  Various employees and volunteers were interviewed by the local media, and we are also thankful for their support.

If you would like to see photos from the event at the Church, please click here.

We wish you the happiest of holidays and look forward to seeing everyone at the Red Ribbon Ball on February 7, 2009!

Posted by Joy Sinclair on Wednesday, December 3rd 2008 in EMAN in the media and EMAN News

UMaine To Host Conference On HIV/AIDS In People Over 50

On September 26th, from 9:00am-noon, there will be a conference on HIV/AIDS in people over 50.  It will take place at the Buchanan House on the University of Maine, Orono, campus, and is free and open to the public.

Jean Lavigne, PhD, one of EMAN's board members, recently gave an interview about the conference to MPBN Radio.  You can read a brief article and hear the interview at the MPBN Radio website.

Posted by Suze Howe on Wednesday, August 27th 2008 in EMAN in the media and Meetings & Conferences

EMAN in the media

These articles and videos feature the Eastern Maine Network, it's staff, or relevant topics.

AIDS Quilt On Display In Orono (WLBZ2) -- Article -- Video

Orono Woman Offers Glimpse Into Her Life With HIV-AIDS (BDN)

Mainers With AIDS Have New Website (WLBZ2) -- Article -- Video

Join EMAN on World AIDS Day (The Maine Edge)

Another Walk Around the Block For a Good Cause (The Maine Edge)

EMAN Walk to Fight AIDS Scheduled For Saturday (BDN)

Charity Walk to Benefit AIDS Network Set For Saturday (WLBZ2) -- article -- video

Joni Averill's Column (BDN) (click on article to enlarge)

New Law Aims To Get More Mainers Tested For HIV (WLBZ2) -- article -- video

Organizaton Offers Support For HIV-Aids Patients (WLBZ2) -- article -- video

Posted by Suze Howe on Friday, March 7th 2008 in EMAN in the media